Wouldn't It be Loverly if Colorado Would Join Other Leading States in Pushing for Housing as Healthcare . . .
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Elizabeth J. Misa is the Deputy Medicaid Director within the Office of Health Insurance Programs (OHIP) at the New York State Department of Health.
We envision a Medicaid system in which spending on social determinants of health such as housing is recognized as a best practice. As such, we plan to document New York’s success story and encourage other State’s to follow suit. - See more at: http://www.csh.org/2014/02/housing-as-healthcare-elizabeth-misa-guest-blogs-about-the-role-of-medicaid-in-supportive-housing/#sthash.iRjmWiZQ.dpuf

Housing As Healthcare

Housing as Health Care — New York's Boundary-Crossing Experiment

New England Journal of Medicine (Dec. 19, 2013)

               "To truly reform U.S. health care and lower costs, we suggest that it's time to broaden our thinking and spending to reach outside conventional health care silos.

               "Social determinants of health should be central to mainstream discussions and funding decisions about health care. For many patients, a prescription for housing or food is the most powerful one that a physician could write, with health effects far exceeding those of most medications.

               "We envision a Medicaid system in which spending on social determinants of health such as housing is not only allowable, but recognized as a best practice. Work toward this goal could begin through state Medicaid waivers and demonstration projects, which would produce evidence to guide best practices that could then be expanded through federal law and incentives.

               "New York's plan to use Medicaid for supportive housing represents one such experiment that crosses traditional boundaries to improve care for high-need, high-cost Medicaid recipients."

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1310121
Housing is Health Care

Kelly Doran, MD, is an emergency physician and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Scholar at Yale University. This post is part of the "Health Care in 2013" series.

               "My New Year’s resolution for the U.S. health system is that we recognize homelessness as a health crisis and housing as a medical intervention.  Health systems and social systems need to work together toward this goal; only by engaging in meaningful discussions and fruitful collaborations will we be able to truly address the pressing health needs and high health care costs of people experiencing homelessness, particularly those who are chronically homeless. 

               "Chronic homelessness is on the decline.  Supportive housing is increasingly being realized by mainstream entities as a health intervention that makes sense.

               "For example, New York State’s Medicaid Redesign Team submitted a 1115 Medicaid waiver in August 2012 that requests to re-invest $750 million in supportive housing, recognizing the importance of supportive housing in meeting the “Triple Aim” of better care, better health, and lower costs."

http://www.rwjf.org/en/blogs/human-capital-blog/2012/12/housing_is_healthca.html
For years, we have believed that housing is healthcare and that without housing, healthcare is very difficult to achieve and somewhat counter-productive.
                        ----------John Parvensky
                                         President & CEO
                                         Colorado Coalition for the Homeless